Noam Koenigsberg in the Shacharit service at Metro's International Terminal.
A White Hat Experience
ALAN HITSKY
Associate Editor
6
:45 a.m. We could be called the
white hat brigade, but we
didn't know it then in the pre-
dawn dampness. The temperatures
were in the 20s and my sleepy eyes
were not fully open in the parking la
in front of Jacque's restaurant on
Telegraph Road. The milling throng,
estimated at 400 who took advantage
of the free busses to the airport, seem-
ed in no hurry to climb aboard as we
said good morning and found travel
companions.
Mike Winkelman, bus leader for
the 32 earlybirds on one of the first
United Hebrew busses to leave for the
airport, put the weather into perspec-
tive: "The weather in Washington is
the same as here, but in Moscow it is
10 degrees below zero."
Winkelman became active in the
Jewish Community Council's Detroit
Committee for Soviet Jewry several
years ago after traveling to the Soviet
Union. Sunday morning, he explain-
ed the Soviet Jewry emigration pro-
cess to his bouncing audience, and
then we settled in to watch the orange
sunrise over Dearborn as we rode
down the Southfield Freeway toward
the airport. We started to exit 1-94 at
Middlebelt, but continued on to Mer-
riman Road as thoughts of Flight 255
passed through my mind.
7:25 a.m. Metro Airport's Interna-
tional Terminal was starting to get
crowded. Not only were 400 persons
coming to the airport by bus, but they
were being joined by nearly 500
others who were flying to Washington
for the Soviet Jewry rally. Two or
three college and high school students
carried furled, home-made banners to
drag aboard the three chartered air-
craft, while hundreds of D.C.-bound
demonstrators and several unlucky
commercial charter groups milled
around the ticket counters.
The Michigan flying delegation to
Washington included members of the
Ann Arbor and Bay City Jewish com-
munities, and a contingent from
Toledo. Chartered buses also made
the long trek overnight from Flint,
Kalamazoo and Grand Rapids.
As the masses of humanity form-
ed into lines, one harried traveler
squeezed through the throng to ask,
"Is this the plane to Aruba? Has it
left yet?"
Meanwhile, a large contingent of
Michigan State Temple Youth, head-
ed by 17-year-old Marc Israel, formed
a circle by the escalator and began an
impromptu sing-a-long. Song leader
Nathan Ellsberg of New York had
joined the group for the weekend,
which included a Friday night pro-
gram at Temple Kol Ami featuring
Keith Braun and his recently-
released Soviet wife, Svetlana.
Above the MSTY group, at the top
of the escalator, a minyan of male
Jews donned talit and tefillin for mor-
ning prayers.
9 a.m. The Michigan contingent
prepares to board its aircraft, bound
for Washington-Baltimore Interna-
tional and Dulles airports. Among the
crowd • are 14 Community Jewish
High School students, accompanied
by principal Phyllis Domstein. Fares
for the students were lowered through
scholarships provided by the United
Hebrew School Woman's Auxiliary
and the Detroit District of the Zionist
Organization of America.
Diane Klein walked through the
Joel Jacob:
Demanding freedom.
crowd, distributing six-inch, white-on-
blue Hadassah pins until her supply
of 250 was exhausted. Joel and
Shelley Tauber edged through the
crowd, heading for the "Plane C"
boarding gate with teenage children
and huge boxes of doughnuts in tow
for all the passengers on the big DC-8.
But everyone was served a sur-
prise breakfast, compliments of. Bor-
man's Inc. Passengers were told to
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
25